1. Field
The present specification generally relates to glass compositions and, more specifically, to chemically and mechanically durable glass compositions which are suitable for use in pharmaceutical packaging.
2. Technical Background
Historically, glass has been used as the preferred material for packaging pharmaceuticals because of its hermeticity, optical clarity and excellent chemical durability relative to other materials. Specifically, the glass used in pharmaceutical packaging must have adequate chemical durability so as not to affect the stability of the pharmaceutical compositions contained therein. Glasses having suitable chemical durability include those glass compositions within the ASTM standard ‘Type 1B’ glass compositions which have a proven history of chemical durability.
However, use of glass for such applications is limited by the mechanical performance of the glass. Specifically, in the pharmaceutical industry, glass breakage is a safety concern for the end user as the broken package and/or the contents of the package may injure the end user. Breakage can be costly to pharmaceutical manufacturers because breakage within a filling line requires that neighboring unbroken containers be discarded as the containers may contain fragments from the broken container. Breakage may also require that the filling line be slowed or stopped, lowering production yields. In addition, breakage may also result in the loss of active drug product leading to increased costs. Further, non-catastrophic breakage (i.e., when the glass cracks but does not break) may cause the contents to lose their sterility which, in turn, may result in costly product recalls.
One approach to improving the mechanical durability of the glass package is to thermally temper the glass package. Thermal tempering strengthens glass by inducing a surface compressive stress during rapid cooling after forming. This technique works well for glass articles with flat geometries (such as windows), glass articles with thicknesses>2 mm, and glass compositions with high thermal expansion. However, pharmaceutical glass packages typically have complex geometries (vial, tubular, ampoule, etc.), thin walls (˜1-1.5 mm), and are produced from low expansion glasses (30-55×10−7K−1) making glass pharmaceutical packages unsuitable for strengthening by thermal tempering.
Chemical tempering also strengthens glass by the introduction of surface compressive stress. The stress is introduced by submerging the article in a molten salt bath. As ions from the glass are replaced by larger ions from the molten salt, a compressive stress is induced in the surface of the glass. The advantage of chemical tempering is that it can be used on complex geometries, thin samples, and is relatively insensitive to the thermal expansion characteristics of the glass substrate. However, glass compositions which exhibit a moderate susceptibility to chemical tempering generally exhibit poor chemical durability and vice-versa.
Accordingly, a need exists for glass compositions which are chemically durable and susceptible to chemical strengthening by ion exchange for use in glass pharmaceutical packages, and similar applications.